153 research outputs found

    The fettered path to Yangch'on : fact and fabrication in representations of the life and thought of Kwon Kun (1352-1409)

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    This thesis will for the first time in English provide a detailed examination of the life, thought and legacy of Kwon Kun. The importance of this thesis is that it will open up new insights into this fascinating and pivotal historical figure, compared to the partial and idiosyncratic treatment he has received in modern scholarship. The thesis will draw extensively on Kwon's own writings, historical records and the spectrum of secondary studies undertaken up until the present to illustrate the contours of his life, reveal the intricacies of his thought on Confucianism and chart the rise and fall of his legacy. This thesis argues three points concerning Kwon Kun. First, responding to scholastic perceptions of Kwon of being of little significance and the ongoing partial depictions of his life, the thesis argues that Kwon Kun's was an important figure during his time, central to the political, educational, international and intellectual activities of the late Koryo and early Choson. In tracing Kwon's life this chapter will also reveal how integral Confucianism was to informing and shaping Kwon's actions, ideas and politics. Second, the thesis will look at Kwon's understanding of the Confucian canon and show that he saw it as a repository for a spectrum of knowledge ranging from the practical to the metaphysical. This argument will show that Kwon adopted a flexible approach in dealing with the canon, its commentators and commentaries. The important point here is that contrary to representations in modern scholarship, Kwon was not a passive conduit for Neo-Confucian teachings but instead critically interpreted and evaluated key Confucian texts and commentaries, including those of Zhu Xi. Lastly, the thesis will examine the legacy of Kwon and show that his fall from grace was a consequence of domestic developments in Choson and the changing focus of intellectuals from the 15th and 16th century onwards. Charting the fate of Kwon's legacy will help explain why scholars of the early 20th century held Kwon in such poor regard. These three points argued here contribute to the field by directly addressing the partial and prejudiced views of Kwon as a historical figure, showing that he was in his time an important and influential figure. The thesis also reveals that Kwon was far more nuanced in his intellectual activities and that our understanding of him to date has suffered from belligerent disciplinary and historiographical preoccupations

    Great Power Peace: Examining Why the Peace Between the Song and Liao Dynasties Lasted Over One Hundred Years

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    Institutions and vessels in East Asia: Exploring a new approach for the study of medieval and early modern wares, applied to the origin of early Ming imperial underglaze blue ceramics and their introduction into Korea.

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    This dissertation challenges the traditional understanding of the origin of certain East Asian vessels. Instead of focusing on a stylistic analysis, it pursues a cross-boundary exploration of the institutions created by state religion and philosophy; the contemporary religions of the courts and high society; law; politics; and economic realities, in more than one country. This study attempts to provide a new way of understanding certain types of the decorative art, as well as the societies in which they arose. The scale of the production of underglaze blue wares dramatically increased during Yuan, at the Jingdezhen kiln complexes in Jiangxi Province in China. Those vessels produced for use at early Ming imperial court achieved the most refined form. Certain elements commonly found in similar West Asian vessel raise an important issue, however. Prior to the evolution of these wares and their impacts upon vessels in Japan, West Asia, Europe and elsewhere through the development of systematic commercial trade relations, already by the early Ming dynasty, their influences was being felt over wide areas of East Asia, including Korea and Southeast Asia. In Korea, wares for use at the royal court, were being manufactured at the Kwangju kiln complex in Kyonggi Province, from early Choson. This study explores the systematic factors that lay behind this production, by exploring how ancient Chinese religions, Confucianism and Buddhism, converged and came to require certain wares for use in high society in China, and its neighbouring countries, such as Korea, during the medieval and early modern period. It pursues the question of how this demand was expressed visually in the production of a specific type of vessel - underglaze blue wares - in the early Ming period, and in Korea. This is situated in the complex cultural and economic milieu of the respective societies and periods

    Jade openwork egret finials: Their historical context and use in China and Korea

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    This thesis is concerned with jade openwork egret finials currently mounted on incense burner covers in museum collections in China, the United States and the United Kingdom in order to investigate their historical context and their original usage before the late Ming Dynasty in China. Their function and dating have been debated since the 1980s by jade experts: on the one hand, they seem to be used as ornamental finials on incense burner covers (luding), as in the Qing Court Collection, and on the other as hat ornaments (maoding) on top of hats before the Ming Dynasty (AD 1368-1644). This controversy began following the discovering of the record by Shen Defu (AD 1578-1642), a writer of the late Ming Wanli period (AD 1573-1619), suggesting that jade finials on incense burner covers were originally used as hat finials in the Yuan Dynasty (AD 1279-1368) to indicate the wearer's rank and authority and that they were eventually adapted as finials of incense burner covers in the Ming Dynasty, owing to the difference in manners and customs to the previous dynasty of Mongol rule. The aim of this thesis is to demonstrate whether this theory can be confirmed in relation to jade openwork egret finials. This study seeks to contribute to an understanding of the association of specific officials and egret symbols, depicted in works of ail in various aspects and from an ornithological point of view throughout Chinese history. This examination of egret symbolism in an historical context will hopefully enable the purpose of these objects to be explained, and also the close relationship between use, motif, design and technique, all interrelated in jade craftsmanship. Included here will be a discussion of the historical context of wearing hat ornaments throughout Chinese history, taking into consideration the relationship between officials holding inspectorate, surveillance and supervisory responsibilities. This thesis continues to analyze the validity of identifying jade openwork finials as luding and the appropriateness for luding of their motifs and fundamental structure. It investigates the possibility of a changing usage based on the historical context of incense burners and the antiquarian culture of the late Ming literati. Finally, the hat finial culture and the foundations for its flourishing in Chos on Korea will be studied to explain its relationship to China, in an attempt to gain insight into the jade openwork egret finial in China by approaching it from a different angle. Jade openwork egret finials were worn by Korean officials in the Choson Dynasty (AD 1392-1910) as their hat finials, and were symbols of their integrity. The practice of wearing jade hat finials originated from the Mongol Yuan period. A wide range of knowledge, and conceptual tools drawn from every possible aspect of culture and arts in China and Korea have been used, in order to place jade openwork egret finials, into their proper historical context. This has been necessary because of insufficient documentary evidence and no conclusive archaeological excavations. Accordingly, the evidence drawn from Korea has enabled the author to offer a fresh perspective about the usage of the jade openwork egret finial in China

    Chinese primacy in East Asian history: Deconstructing the tribute system in China's early Ming Dynasty.

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    The "tribute system" has been the central organizing concept for our thinking about historical East Asian politics since the 1940s. Despite its dominance in the literature, however, the concept remains ill-defined and underspecified. The extant frameworks constructed around the concept also have not been evaluated conceptually and empirically in a systematic way. Most importantly, the tribute system, as an important institution for interstate relations in East Asian history, remains undertheorized in the existing literature. This thesis identifies three interrelated ways in which the "tribute system" concept has been used in the literature and argues that they all encounter problems in interpreting or explaining historical East Asian politics. The thesis deconstructs this concept by developing a theory of Chinese primacy in historical East Asia and by evaluating it against evidence from early Ming China's (1368-1424) relations with Korea, Japan, and the Mongols. The theory and evidence show that East Asian politics under the condition of Chinese primacy or unipolarity are best described as the dynamics between China's political/military domination and other states' accommodation and resistance. A variety of motives and strategies that China and its neighbours can employ toward each other are identified. The multiplicity of the relations between China and its neighbours suggests the need to deconstruct the analytical category of the "tribute system" and develop new conceptualizations about historical East Asian politics. The thesis calls for new thinking about historical East Asian politics, contributes to theorizing in this field by developing a synthetic theory of Chinese primacy that draws on both realist and constructivist theories of International Relations, and evaluates some persistent myths about Chinese foreign policy and East Asian politics in history

    Pagodas, polities, period and place: a data led exploration of the regional and chronological context of Liao dynasty architecture

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    The Liao dynasty (907-1125) was a dominant force in the political landscape of East Asia for a period of over two centuries. Despite this, when placed within the framework of Chinese history, the Liao polity and its associated architecture are forced to the periphery. This study aims to re-centre the Liao by exploring the pagodas constructed under this polity within a wider regional and chronological framework. To achieve this end, extant pagodas from China, North Korea, South Korea and Japan were recorded together in a database for the first time. The HEAP (Historical East Asian Pagoda) Database logs the date, location and feature set of each pagoda it contains and provides a means to compare Liao examples to those from other polities, places and periods. Through analysis and visualisations of this data, the Liao are identified as a polity that produced unique pagoda designs and a distinct visual style. While Liao pagodas played a major role in the wider design trends of the period, it is the influence they had at a more local level that may be of most significance, potentially making us rethink the way we frame and construct histories of architecture in China and East Asia

    Tea in the Historical Context of East Asia: Cultural Interactions across Borders

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    (Translated: Jenine Heaton) Session statement 4: Tea viewed from the comparative culture and cultural interactio

    The Yongnam-Ro: an Historical Geography of a Korean Royal Road. (Volumes I and II).

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    The Yongnam-ro, the main communication artery between Seoul and Pusan, was the shortest and the most important route running through the central part of southern Korea. This road evolved as a military campaign route in ancient times and finally as an administrative communication artery in the Yi Dynasty. Although spanning some rugged areas in its course, the Yongnam-ro had some advantages: first, it avoided the troublesome communication system connected by river crossings because its path followed longitudinal valleys of the Han and Naktong rivers; second, it connected the waterways of the Han and Naktong; third, it formed the pivot belt between the capital and the Yongnam region, the most productive and populous province in the country; and finally, it played an important strategic role. The Yongnam-ro passed through about twenty counties and connected seventy others by means of branch roads. Numerous settlements both administrative and roadside developed along the Yongnam-ro. Administrative towns, power bases of local nobles, functioned as the centers of tax collection, culture, and trade. Roadside settlements were classified into two groups: royal settlements including post stations, public ferries, and hostels; and commercial settlements including periodic markets, river ports, and inn complexes. Royal settlements, mainly post stations, formed consanguine villages because of the entail service. Commercial settlements developed by commoner merchants in the seventeenth century and many of them became leading regional or local service centers in modern Korea. Although the Yongnam-ro was established solely for administrative purposes, it functioned as the route of trade and cultural diffusion. The impacts of the Yongnam-ro still survive in the roadside landscape and cultural traits of the people. Modern Korean urban network is based on the frame of the Yongnam-ro, even though its location was partially shifted. The Yongnam-ro zone is the most important industrial and commercial axis of Korea. The tradition of agricultural technology and landuse of the Yongnam region are reflected in the modern landscape. Cultural and political ties between the national core and the Yongnam region remain strong

    The Background and Development of the 1871 Korean-American Incident: A Case Study in Cultural Conflict

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    This study is an attempt to combine the disciplines of Asian history and United States diplomatic history in analyzing the 1871 Korean-American Incident. The Incident revolves around the Low-Rodgers expedition to Korea, and the subsequent breakdown of peaceful negotiations into a military clash of arms. To describe the Incident as merely another example of American imperialism,\u27\u27 or as a result of narrow-minded Korean isolationism, is to oversimplify its causes and miss the larger implications that can be learned from it. A basic premise of this paper is that the 1871 Incident is an example of East-West cultural conflict. As such, the forces that helped to determine the attitudes and behavior of both the Americans and Koreans were of a broad nature reflecting their respective cultural differences. At times, these differences were so basic and general that the specialist in history can easily overlook them. To better understand this conflict of cultures, Chapters II and III discuss elements of Korean and American diplomacy before the 1860’s, and how their unique experiences led to widely different attitudes toward foreign relations. Chapter II concentrates on traditional Chinese-Korean relations, and their effect upon Korea\u27s approach to diplomacy; Chapter III emphasizes the nature of America\u27s first contacts with East Asia and the important influence of the activities of the United States in the Mediterranean region. Chapters IV and V deal with domestic politics in Korea and the United States, and how these internal conditions affected each nation\u27s attitude toward the other. Chapter VI is a detailed description of the immediate events that culminated in the 1871 Incident. Chapters I and VII are the introduction and conclusion. In researching this paper, government documents, memoirs, diaries, personal accounts, contemporary newspapers, books, and articles were all used. When writing the chapters that deal primarily with Korea, Korean sources have been used as much as possible. The Korean and American officials, though communicating in the same language (Chinese characters), were negotiating from completely different cultural norms. Both sides felt that their positions and actions were morally justified. In studying the official documents concerning the Incident, the reader is indeed impressed by the sincerity and honesty of all parties involved. In this sense, it is difficult to label one group guilty and the other group innocent. It must be remembered, however, that the Americans were carrying out naval activities in Korean waters, and not the Koreans in American waters. The student of history is reminded that American-East Asian relations, unlike most American-European relations, must constantly confront and overcome wide cultural differences. To ignore these differences, or to impose one\u27s own cultural views on another society, is to invite misunderstanding, raise suspicions, and increase the possibility of conflict
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